Whim Independent Studios

This is the page for the Whim Independent Studios team. This includes members who have been instrumental to development of our projects, as well as interns, contributors, and voiceover artists who contributed to our various projects.

Grover Wimberly IV
Founder, Producer, and Director

Grover currently oversees the development of part 2 of Selatria, as well as an upcoming mobile game in development. He also has produced and designed ANTics and maintains coordination between the artists, musicians, programmers, sound designers and voice actors to ensure the projects go at a steady pace.

For development of Selatria, he currently develops the cutscenes, and he came up with the designs for the Reserved Selatria and Team Attack systems, and came up with the game design and mechanics of ANTics.

He currently frequently travels between Las Vegas, Nevada and San Bernardino, California and enjoys traveling, listening to catchy music, playing MMOs with his friends, and playing through his growing stack of shame of games.

Favorite Games/Inspirations: Final Fantasy series, Pokémon, Lufia, Breath of Fire, Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario Galaxy. Currently trying to play through various Zelda and Fire Emblem games.

Matt has done exceptional work on Selatria. He designed many of the boss battles, puzzles, and dungeons to bring the most out of the the game’s engine. In ANTics, he has worked on boss battles and UI programming.

There are many more battles and scenes in production, and he can’t wait to see how players best his various schemes.

A long time gamer, with a background in programming and math, he is always looking to both accept and give new challenges in both technical skill and logic.

Paul oversees agreements, contracts between team members, and make sure that appropriate business matters are taken care of so development on current projects can proceed.
Favorite Games/Inspirations: Assassin’s Creed, Pokémon, Mass Effect series.

Jonathan “Jodin” Dishaw
Selatria Lead Game Designer

Jon originally signed on for testing and balancing. However, he has taken an expanded role in Selatria’s development, working on expanding the Team Attack system, designing new abilities for characters, and writing sections of the plot.

For Selatria, Jon focuses on keeping combat challenging and rewarding as well as providing significant contributions to the dialogue, plot, and scenario design.

For ANTics, Jon devised the original concept and many other game mechanics.

Gerren is the lead programmer for ANTics. He created the software architecture for the game and implemented the majority of the game mechanics. He has also taken on the role as the company’s web developer and has revamped the site to what you see now.

He enjoys taking game design ideas and bringing them to life through code.

Jennifer Gilliland prefers to be called Jen or Jenny by her peers, because it makes her feel less old! In Selatria, Jen took her first shot creating sprites and had a blast doing so. She also helps concept environments and characters, because she really enjoys characters, painting, and improving! She went to Digipen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA and after a ton of boss battles she graduated with her B.F.A. She aspires to be a Texture Artist or Character Artist in the video game industry.
Portfolio

Deborah Groves
Selatria Co-Lead Artist

Deborah is the character concept and sprite artist in Selatria. She recently joined the team and is currently attending Cal State San Bernardino as a Studio Art major.
She enjoys creating diverse characters for any project she’s on and one day hopes to create unique and relatable characters that will inspire others for future creative projects.

Ryan is the writer and editor for Selatria. He has generously taken it upon himself to fix the gaping plot-holes and horrendous dialogue Jon, Grover, and Matt subject him to. Even though he has yet to make a single day on time, he manages to consistently put forward a substantial effort and reliable results. His major flaw is that he is a shameless graphics whore.

Geno has designed the company’s logo and will provide conceptual art for characters, items and environments in future projects. Since childhood, he has always been fascinated in the illusion of life in illustrated characters. Therefore he naturally looked into the field of artwork in video games.
He graduated from the University of Redlands with a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design., and will use his skills in creating life in his work.

Paul is 3D modeler and animator of the bugs in ANTics, and sports the second largest beard amongst the team. He has worn many hats throughout his career, and has the opportunity to work QA testing at Square-Enix USA.

Matt is a Game Designer and Programmer with Whim Indie. Having started as an intern for Selatria, Matt now works to bring Whim’s games to life. Specializing in UI implementation, Matt endeavors to bring out the best of what ever project is before him.

Favorite Games/Inspirations: Half-Life 2, Fallout New Vegas, Shadowrun series, Age of Empires series

Jessica M. Jacuinde
Artist/Video Editor

Jessica worked on creating the game trailer for ANTics, and is currently an artist for the team. This past June 2015 she graduated from Cal State San Bernardino with a B.A. in Art, emphasis in Studio Art, and Film Studies minor.

Whether through illustration, film, or even writing, telling and sharing stories has always been apart of her.

Chiaki has been invited into the Whim family, and is very delighted to be here. Chiaki is now the SFX Artist for Selatria and more titles to come! Chiaki has always had a number one passion for games/game music/game sound, and hopes to someday be composing for many games.

Chris started as an intern and was brought on as a game designer. Besides working at the studio, Chris also works at a veterinarian hospital and has a passion for reptiles, drumming, and playing video games.